Although WordPress is a powerful blogging platform and is being used by millions of bloggers all around the world, still to enhance your WordPress blog or website and get an edge over your competitors, you need to take some extra efforts. Yes, we are referring to the use of WordPress Plugins. Here, we will let you know the 10 Best WordPress Plugins.
WordPress Plugins easily enhance the features of your site or blog and help you to achieve search engine optimization besides addressing various security issues and helping to increase users’ engagement too.
In fact, WordPress Plugins adds lots of capabilities and supercharges your site with many powerful and useful features, as well.
Hereunder, we have listed 10 Must-Have WordPress Plugins that will greatly enhance your site for better user experience.
We have featured WordPress Plugins under various categories such as:
- Caching Plugin
- SEO Plugin
- All in One Plugin
- Security Plugin
- Backup Plugin
- AMP Plugin
- Mobile Theme Plugin
- Contact Form Plugin
- Anti-Spam Plugin
- SSL Plugin
So, if you are running a WordPress blog or are planning to start a new WordPress Blog, then these WordPress Plugins are a must for you to popularize and grow your blog.
These 10 Best & Must-Have WordPress Plugins serve various purposes. They accomplish SEO tasks, addresses security issues, optimizes website performance, provides various contact form options, achieves keyword optimization, backup database, show related posts on your blogs and many other tasks, as well.
So, let’s explore the 10 Best WordPress Plugins presented below, and you will like to include them in your WordPress blog or website.
These WordPress Plugins will offer your blogs the much-needed extra-edge to power them ahead and overcome competition easily.
10 Best WordPress Plugins
Here’s the listing for you:
Caching Plugin
Caching Plugin is used to speed up your blog. People expect that a blog should load fast.
You could lose visitors and customers just because your blog takes too long to load. Research studies show that a one-second delay could cause a 7% drop in conversions.
Moreover, Google has gone on to incorporate page load times into its algorithm. So, you could lose out your rankings on SERPs if your blog takes too long to load.
A Caching Plugin can solve this issue and speed up your WordPress Blog. Let’s witness one of the most popular WordPress Caching Plugin:
1. W3 Total Cache
W3 Total Cache is a leading WordPress Plugin for improving page load times. It has numerous features and functions more than just a simple caching plugin. When fully configured, this plugin delivers a serious positive impact on load times.
W3 Total Cache comes with Content Delivery Network (CDN) integration to boost website performance and reduce download times.
W3 Total Cache is trusted by the likes of AT&T, mattcutts.com, kiss925.com, Mashable.com, makeuseof.com, johnchow.com, smashingmagazine.com, webdesignerdepot.com, and countless others.
With W3 Total Cache, you can enhance your website performance. It means your website ranks higher in Google which in turn translates into more visitors and conversions for you.
W3 Total Cache serves compressed and cached files to your visitors. It goes on to reduce the load on your server, and your website becomes fast.
W3 Total Cache offers database caching, page cache, object caching, and browser caching. It is compatible with various hosting environments and comes with CDN support. It has options for HTTP compression of HTML, JS, and CSS files, and can save bandwidth up to 80%.
W3 Total Cache stores the already executed static image of your site so that WordPress does not have to generate it on the fly. W3 Total Cache supports advanced settings; however, it even works on its default settings.
So, W3 Total Cache works out as one of the best caching plugins for WordPress.
WordPress SEO Plugin
Search engines prove a major source of traffic for most websites. So, it’s important that you improve SEO of your WordPress site to up the search engine rankings of your website and gain more traffic, hits, and conversions.
WordPress SEO Plugin helps to improve the SEO of your website.
Although WordPress is well-coded and is SEO friendly, the real advantage is derived by using WordPress SEO Plugins.
They help you to improve your On-page SEO. You can add custom post title, Meta description, Meta keyword for posts, pages, and taxonomies.
You can create XML Sitemaps. One can set up advanced configurations. You can add custom RSS footer to your WordPress posts. They even notify search engines when your content gets published. Plus, tons of other cools feature.
2. Yoast SEO
Yoast SEO comes as the most downloaded WordPress Plugins of all times. In fact, it’s the best and most comprehensive solution for your On-site SEO needs. It includes a massive range of features.
Yoast SEO can add OpenGraph data, XML Sitemaps, and can generate SEO score for your posts and pages.
It offers easy set-up and top-of-the-line functionality. Yoast SEO helps to optimize your content correctly. It guides you all the way to create better content.
With Yoast SEO, you can improve your rankings on search results and optimize your WordPress site for search engines. It’s by far the complete SEO solution for WordPress.
It not only offers Meta tag additions, but you can use it to add custom post title, Meta description, as well as Meta keyword for posts, pages, and taxonomies.
Yoast SEO even shows you Google search result snippet preview. It can create XML sitemaps that support images. It even has advanced configuration abilities.
For example, you can remove a specific post, page, or post type from a sitemap.
It even notifies your search engine once your content gets published. Yoast SEO has social integration and can add custom RSS footer to your WordPress posts.
All in One WordPress Plugin
All in One WordPress Plugins come with a multitude of different features. They offer you customization tools, enhanced security, speed optimization and various other capabilities for optimizing your WordPress site.
With an All in One Plugin, you don’t need to install various other WordPress plugins. So, they help to keep your WordPress site fast delivering top performance for users.
For example, all in One Plugin help you to have a contact form on your WordPress site. You can show related posts and activate other customization features.
As the name suggests itself, all in One Plugin helps to power your WordPress site in more than one way so that you don’t need to use different WordPress Plugins.
Let’s witness one of the most powerful and popular All in One Plugin:
3. Jetpack
Jetpack features among one of the most popular WordPress Plugins out there. It’s a must-have on most WordPress sites. It offers a multitude of different features.
One of the major highlights of Jetpack is that it connects your site to WordPress.com for traffic and customization tools, plus enhanced security and speed optimization. It even has the contact form functionality.
With Jetpack, you get the hassle-free design, marketing and security – all clubbed in one place.
It allows you to customize your WordPress site from start to finish. Jetpack offers powerful and intuitive customization tools. It helps you with high-speed image and video content delivery network.
Jetpack offers site stats and analytics and a multitude of other marketing services. It facilitates automated social media posting and scheduling (in advance). You can activate related content and site search. There are SEO tools for Google, Bing, Twitter, WordPress.com and Facebook.
With Jetpack, you don’t have to worry about data loss, downtime, and hacking. It helps you with Brute force attack protection, spam filtering, and downtime monitoring. Moreover, you get daily backups of your entire site. It even offers malware scanning, code scanning, and automated threat resolution.
Plus, there’s expert support whenever you need. You can post questions in the support forum or contact us directly.
Best of all, all the core features of Jetpack are available for FREE.
WordPress Security Plugin
WordPress Security Plugins protect your WordPress site in the best possible way. They secure your website from the start. Although WordPress offers some security features, it’s nothing to what you get with a reputable security plugin.
With WordPress Security Plugin, you get the following capabilities:
- File scanning
- Active security monitoring
- Malware scanning
- Firewalls
- Brute force attack protection
- Notifications whenever a security threat is detected
- Security Hardening
- Blacklist monitoring
- Secure your Login Page
- Secure your WordPress Database
So, there’s a lot that the WordPress Security Plugin can accomplish. One should take your WordPress Site Security seriously. Moreover, you got to know the fact that WordPress is one of the most commonly hacked CMS.
So, you are not safe. Installing a WordPress Security Plugin, you can safeguard your site. Here, we share with you one of the top WordPress Security Plugin. Let’s check it out:
4. iThemes Security Plugin
iThemes Security Plugin protects your WordPress website or blog from things like hacks and unwanted intruders. It was previously called Better WP Security.
iThemes Security comes with over 30 offerings to prevent various security issues with your WordPress website.
Moreover, iThemes Security has a strong focus on dealing with issues such as plugin vulnerabilities, weak passwords, and obsolete software.
iThemes Security is available in free as well as Pro version. Its Pro version comes at a low price of $80 per year with ticketed support, one year of plugin updates, plus support for two websites.
However, we must tell you that its Free version is studded with most of the basic security features and is surely perfect to begin safeguarding your website from security vulnerabilities.
That said if you look for advanced security features then you should go for its Pro version. The iThemes Security Pro offers many primary security features.
It offers strong password enforcement, the locking out of bad users, database backups, as well as two-factor authentication. Moreover, that’s not all. You can activate as much as 30 security features with iThemes Security Pro.
WordPress Backup Plugin
Imagine yourself in a catastrophic situation when your site gets hacked, or your server crashes. It’s a nasty situation.
What’s the solution for you? Well, in such situations the only possible and feasible way that can bail you out is to create regular WordPress Backups.
It’s the best thing you can do to your website. You can use free or paid WordPress Backup Plugins that offer backup services. It’s the best way to back up your WordPress website or blog regularly.
So, if you are not backing your site, then you can start using the below listed WordPress Backup Plugin and backup your site right away.
5. UpdraftPlus
UpdraftPlus is a free and one of the most popular WordPress Backup Plugin. With UpdraftPlus, you can have a complete backup of your WordPress site and store it either on the cloud or else download to your computer.
The UpdraftPlus backup plugin supports both scheduled and on-demand backups. You can even select the files for backup. UpdraftPlus goes on to automatically upload your backups to Google Drive, Dropbox, FTP, SFTP, Amazon S3, Rackspace Cloud, and on several other cloud storage services.
So, UpdraftPlus simplifies backups and restoration. In fact, UpdraftPlus has achieved over a million active installs. It’s easy and intuitive to use. It uses fewer server resources.
UpdraftPlus also offers a premium version with add-ons to migrate or clone site. It also comes with features such as database search and replaces, together with multisite support and various other features. Plus, you have priority support as well.
So, you can backup your WordPress site with UpdraftPlus and give yourself the ultimate insurance.
AMP Plugin
AMP which is better known as Accelerated Mobile Page Plugins offers seamless website usability from any mobile viewing device.
With AMP Plugins, your viewers can take full advantage of your website’s features when they use a mobile viewing device.
In fact, for AMP optimization, you can use AMP Plugins for WordPress. Moreover, AMP Plugins are useful and offer website visibility to Google’s SEO algorithm.
AMP Plugins make your website load instantly on a mobile device. You get the same speed and functionality as you have on a PC.
Here, we list out one of the leading AMP Plugins for you.
6. AMP for WordPress
AMP for WordPress is one of the best WordPress Plugins for optimizing your WordPress site for AMP. It comes with a large selection of extensions. Plus, it has added support options together with a broad range of design customization tools.
Another good thing with AMP for WP is the fact that it undergoes regular updates fixing bugs and adding new features. Moreover, it is easy to use even for WordPress novices. AMP for WP is reliable, responsive, and versatile.
One of the major highlights of AMP for WP is its Custom AMP Editor using which you can create mutually exclusive page designs, content, and updates for AMP side of a WordPress site.
It features a drag-and-drop page builder with which you can customize your WP site layout for better user experience. It even implements Mobile Redirection for fast loading WP site on any device. So, AMP for WP helps in improving your Google SEO rating.
It has been designed proficiently both on the front end as well as at the admin level. Plus, AMP for WP supports Carousel Galleries as well as YouTube Video Embedding. Its extensions add email support functionality, custom post types, and more.
Mobile Theme Plugin
As mobile usage surpasses desktop usage, it’s important to make your site mobile-friendly and responsive for delivering the best online experience to your users.
Moreover, Google also expects your site to work flawlessly on mobile.
With Mobile Theme Plugin, you can make your site load fast and easy to navigate. In other words, the Mobile Theme Plugin makes the user experience superbly phenomenal.
There’s a big rush for the mobile-friendly and responsive website.
Well, you can also join the league by using Mobile Theme Plugin. Here, we list out one of the most popular Mobile Theme Plugins. Do check it out:
7. WPtouch
WPtouch is by far the most popular WordPress Mobile Plugin that goes on to add a simple and elegant mobile theme to your WordPress site for mobile visitors.
With WPtouch, you can have a mobile-friendly version of your website which clears the Google Mobile Test. It ensures that your SEO rankings stay upright by having a mobile-friendly website. It comes with a streamlined approach and serves optimized content to your mobile visitors.
WPtouch offers a powerful administration panel with which you can customize many aspects of your website appearance. It helps you to deliver fast, user-friendly, and stylish version of your site to your mobile visitors.
Moreover, all this is achieved without you having to dwell with even a single line of code. Moreover, your regular desktop theme is left untouched and is available for your non-mobile visitors.
WPtouch is also available in a premium version with WPtouch Pro. It offers enhanced themes for blogs, businesses, and even WooCommerce retailers. It also offers several extensions that go on to add rich advertising options, advanced web font controls, and more. Plus, you get top-notch one-on-one support from its professional team.
Contact Form Plugin
Do you want to add a Contact Form to your WordPress Site?
Well, with a Contact Form Plugin, you can easily add a contact form in your WordPress site. A contact form is the most basic part of a website. It’s an essential and important means of communication.
It allows your customers and visitors to send you a quick email without spending too much time over the phone or live chat. The message reaches you promptly. It enhances the way you interact with your customers and even offers spam protection.
With a Contact Form Plugin, you can keep your customers in contact with you. It features:
- Custom forms
- Visual Builders
- Frontend file submission
- Responsiveness
- Conditional logic
- Moreover, much more
Here, we show you one of the most popular Contact Form Plugins:
8. Contact Form 7
Contact Form 7 is the oldest and the most downloaded contact form plugin. It’s available in the official WordPress Plugin Directory.
It’s one of the top solutions out there. Moreover, it is a Free plugin, and you can install it on as many sites as you want. It’s sleek and minimal.
It’s best at creating a basic contact form for your blog that’s stable and reliable. With Contact Form 7, you can create an unlimited number of forms.
You can include fields such as date, URL, email, and text. It even supports CAPTCHA, file submission, drop-down menus, radio buttons, and checkboxes. It allows you to place the form anywhere on your website using simple shortcodes.
With Contact Form 7, you gain access to the additional section called Contact in the WordPress Dashboard. It allows you to add new forms and even adjust the existing ones.
Contact Form 7 offers an interface that is based on HTML tags. It allows you to include custom elements in between your form fields such as extra text or images.
Another big highlight of Contact Form 7 is its support. It includes documentation, a support forum, an FAQ, and even offers a full website with information.
Anti-Spam Plugin
Spam is the most unpleasant thing to experience with your website, more so in a scenario when you see growth in the incoming traffic.
As your website gains traffic, it has chances of being attacked by unwelcome spammers in the form of automated spam bots.
The most relevant example comes in the form of comments. When you don’t moderate comments, your posts and pages get filled up by tons of irrelevant content (spam). Spam can hamper your overall SEO score badly.
Moreover, the manual process of moderating comments is tedious and time-consuming. Another big disadvantage is the fact that spam comments continue to fill your WordPress database. It makes your database slow.
Here comes the role of Anti-Spam Plugins. You can use Anti-Spam Comments and ward off these pesky spam comments. Here, we share with you one of the top Anti-Spam Plugins.
9. Akismet Anti-Spam
Akismet is the longest running and one of the most popular WordPress Anti-Spam Plugins. Automattic, the team behind WordPress, have developed it.
Akismet is a free and cloud-based Anti-Spam WordPress Plugin. It’s available in the official WordPress Plugin repository. It comes automatically installed with the default installation of WordPress.
Akismet uses a web service that has been powered by the cloud servers to evaluate comments for spam. You can connect to the cloud service with an API key, which is free and easy to set up. It can be obtained when you register for the service.
All the incoming comments are uploaded to the Akismet Cloud Servers. These comments are then evaluated for validity using highly specialized algorithms.
All the nuisance (spam comments) are caught red-handed and shifted to the spam queue. The clean ones are directly moderated and published. Whenever it gets stuck, it moves the comments to the moderation queue.
Its free version comes with a limit of 50,000 comments check per month. Its paid plans start at $5 per month. The plugin also integrates with Jetpack and Contact Form 7 plugins.
SSL Plugin
HTTPS (HTTP Secure) is used instead of HTTP (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol) to secure communication over a computer network. It prevents hackers from attacking your network.
So, webmasters and bloggers are moving their website URLs from HTTP to HTTPS. Websites with HTTPS use an SSL Certificate.
SSL (Secure Socket Layer) encrypts the website information between the server and browser. It is achieved with HTTPS in the URL. HTTPS signals that a website page is safe and secure.
If you use your website to collect customer information (name, address, credit card details, etc.), you need to use SSL Certificate. Plus, Google has made SSL Certification as a ranking factor.
SSL offers enhanced security, peace of mind, customer trust, and high Google search rankings.
SSL Plugins are used to redirect pages to HTTPS. It saves your time and makes the whole process clean and easy. Here, we share with you one of the best SSL Plugins.
10. Really Simple SSL
The Really Simple SSL enables SSL with one click. It aims to keep SSL simple with minimal options.
Once it is enabled, the plugin moves the entire site to SSL. It configures your site to run over HTTPS.
The site URL, as well as the home URL, is changed to HTTPS. So, all the incoming requests are redirected to HTTPS.
It is simple to set up.
- You have to get the SSL Certificate
- Activate the Plugin
- Enable SSL with one click
Really Simple SSL is also available in a Premium version which offers support for mixed content, Certificate expiration check, the option to enable HTTP Strict Transport Security, premium support, and lots more.
This completes our list on 10 Best WordPress Plugins. These are the most popular WordPress plugins with bloggers, webmasters, and developers.
So, empower your WordPress blog or website with these best WordPress Plugins.
Plus, we will update the list soon and will list out some more useful and must-have WordPress Plugins. So, watch out for more.
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